Why we invaded Iraq (my thoughts)

[Old and In the Way]

We've been bombarded the last couple of days with images of a defeated tyrant. We seen our unelected pResident taking bows for "gitting Saddam".

But quite interesting today, he was still adament on linking Saddam to WMD, raising his voice to make this point in his interview with Diane Sawyer. He further continues to blur the association of Hussein with 9/11.

To date, we've seen no compelling evidence that Saddam had weapons of mass destruction minutes away from being used on the American public. There has been even less evidence to link Iraq to 9/11.

So why have we spent the last year debating IWR, the send-up at the UN, the pre-war, the war, the post-war? Why indeed.

If Iraq was such a problem, where was this issue in Bush's 2000 election campaign? Why was Cheney having no problem evading a US embargo to do $24MM of profits with Iraq as head of Halliburton in 1998? Why was Iraq not an issue post 9/11 until Andrew Card told us in the summer of 2002 that this administration would roll out the Iraq War in the fall...because summer was not a time to introduce a new product? Why go after Iraq when 15/19 hijacker's were Saudi's and AQ was clearly a manifestation of the Madrasses in the Kingdom and Pakistan? Why invade the only secular nation in the ME that had no connection to 9/11?

The answers to these questions, I believe, lie in the "un-investigation" that is being conducted into the events of 9/11. 2500+ Americans died on that day and I've heard nary a word from this administration in support of finding the truth of that day.

I look at the forced war that have cost us 400+ American live, thousands more casualties, and an occupation that will demand our attention at least through the 2004 election.

And I realize now that the Bush administration has been succesful. They have deflected and distracted both Americans and the rest of the world to focus our attention on Iraq. And thus, they escape their responsibility for what happened on 9/11/01.

[alcuno]

1. When you have the country fighting over the reason for the war

AFTER it was fought, it's a major policy disaster no matter which way you slice it. How can a president take a nation to war with the citizens, and a lot of soldiers, wondering why? That's no success.

[Droopy]

2. Personally, I think it's more about oil

They used the attacks of 9/11 (tried to link them to Hussein) as a springboard to carry out an agenda that had been in the works for several years (PNAC). They wanted to go after Iraq a long time ago to secure the world's oil resources. They just never had the opportunity until 9/11. They've somehow convinced a majority of Americans that Hussein was behind, or at least had something to do with, those attacks. And off to war we go.

[Old and In the Way]

3. Yes, PNAC...........

Interesting how PNAC became quite well known to us after 9/11. I wonder why they didn't pull that website down as soon as it was exposed....maybe because they wanted us to conclude....aha! The global reason for this war. How do we really know when that site became operative?

Interesting that it was these same men in charge of our government on 9/11/01.

And really, what would be the point? They already had the oil concessions divvied up for their political benefactors. The oil was worthless to Saddam without Western Technology to extract it. 2 days before the invasion, Saddam negotiated away his oil rights to the US....we invaded anyway. Why?

Because this administration needed to change our focus away from 9/11 and divert it to Iraq. Watch the Diane Sawyer interview tonight. The distraction goes on....they must connect Saddam to 9/11 and WMD to justify their deflection.

[FloridaPat]

4. PNAC became known after 9-11 because Bush made it

his national policy. It was a couple of months after 9-11. And of course, immediately everyoen noted the Pearl Harbor requirement. Yes, this is the stated policy of the USA.

[durutti]

5. Hegemony

This war was about empire. Oil is, of course, a big part of that equation.

[Old and In the Way]

6. Sure beats impeachment , a trial, and capital sentencing for

gross negligence (at best) on 9/11.

2500+ Americans died on 9/11. No accountability. I dare say we are less safer today, only because those that might be guility are guiding a US policy that puts their personal security 1st, our national security 2nd.

[NavajoRug]

7. I have a friend from the Middle East with an intriguing perspective . . .

. . . on the whole thing.

He strongly suspects that Saddam Hussein WAS involved in 9/11, as well as both the 1993 WTC bombing and the Oklahoma City bombing a couple of years later.

This is guy is one of the most lucid, non-nutty people I have ever met (he's also opposed to the U.S. war in Iraq), and he truly believes that Saddam Hussein has been waging a low-grade guerrilla war inside the U.S. for the last ten years. He has managed to connect a few dots over the years.

His contention is that the U.S. government cannot reveal all the evidence because of the embarrassing revelations and implications it would have for every administration going back to Bush I.

[Old and In the Way]

8. Too bad........

That would explain Bush's decision to use the "Saddam is evil and responsible for 9/11, but trust me on this one" in absense of any evidence to support it.

[NavajoRug]

9. You have to understand something about this guy . . .

He's not one to bullsh!t at all.

In fact, he bases his conclusions on a ton of research he has done over the last two years, both here and in the Middle East.

He happened to be working in the World Trade Center during both the 1993 and 2001 attacks, and for him it was simply a methodical, pragmatic exercise -- he just wanted to find out who tried to kill him (twice).

The real kicker, according to him, is two-fold: 1) The suspected mastermind of the 1993 attack, Ramzi Yousef, was released on bail by the U.S. Justice Department because he had arranged to cooperate with them, but promptly fled to Baghdad and has never been seen since. 2) What's more . . . one of the other perpetrators in the 1993 attack just happened to be the nephew of one of Osama bin Laden's key men in Afghanistan -- Khalid Sheikh Muhammed.

[KoKo]

13. It still doesn't answer why Bush is "stonewalling" 9/11 Inquiry, and why

the House and Senate aren't breathing down this Admin's next to find out.

Maybe you have a point that if the "can of worms" is opened it would go way back (I think to Nixon) but Senator Byrd already said on the Senate Floor that we SOLD Saddam his WMD. So it's out there.

If it's being stonewalled it's because of complicity. And, our country will be complicit in other "dirty deals" going forward if we don't get to the bottom of this.

[Old and In the Way]

19. Heck, we sold Osama a jet in 1991

Apparently used to transport rockets. Read that on the 9/11 timeline at cooperativeresearch.....amazing the nuggets you learn there.

Another Bush ex-friend.......

[thebigidea]

15. your friend sounds as insane as Wolfowitz

"1) The suspected mastermind of the 1993 attack, Ramzi Yousef, was released on bail by the U.S. Justice Department because he had arranged to cooperate with them, but promptly fled to Baghdad and has never been seen since."

wrong. He was caught in Pakistan. He's in prison.

[NavajoRug]

20. Actually, he's not insane at all -- but I am a friggin' moron . . .

I got the names of two of the perpetrators confused. As you pointed out, Ramzi Yousef was captured in Pakistan in 1995. The one I'm actually thinking of is Abdul Rahman Yasin, who apparently hasn't been seen since he fled to Iraq after being cut loose by the Justice Department in 1993.

[alcuno]

10. Remind why bin Laden would have needed Hussein.

bin Laden had bundles of Saudi money, willing operatives, terrorist training camps, and basically free reign in a religiously oppressive country. He's already owned up to 9/11. What use would he have for Saddam, a secular dictator with the US and Great Britain all over his ass.

Hussein provided a wonderful distraction from bin Laden and that's about it.

[NavajoRug]

21. It's actually the other way around . . .

When you ask yourself, "Why would Saddam Hussein need Osama bin Laden?," the scenario I presented actually makes a lot of sense.

[skeptic9]

11. Don't forget: For Dubya, Saddam is a family matter...

"He tried to kill my daddy!"

Oil certainly is a very big part of the motive for invading and occupying Iraq.

But when Dubya made his "Axis of Evil" speech, what must have been running somewhere through the empty caverns of his mind was the criticism of Daddy Bush he'd heard for a decade: "George HW Bush didn't finish the job".

With the massively violent, pre-emptive invasion of a country that posed no immediate threat to the US, Dubya accomplished three very personal goals:

He started to get revenge for a reputed planned assassination of Daddy Bush.

He outdid his very accomplished and professional father, at least in his own mind.

And he had a fresh reason to think he'd won the heart of Mom (Barbara Bush) away from his father. Remember the controversial family profiles of the Bushes in the NY Times and Washington Post during the 2000 campaign? Remember what Gore Vidal said about the deep roots of competition between Dubya and Daddy Bush?

[Old and In the Way]

12. kick...

[BurtWorm]

14. I don't know about that. I see the deflection as a welcome by-product

of a plan they clearly have been working on for more than a decade. It's very strange how Iraq deflects attention at the same time that it uses the lustre of 9-11 to mask its real purposes, which are a) to finish Daddy Bush's unfinished business, and b) to neutralize a major threat to Israel and American oil interests in the Gulf.

[Old and In the Way]

16. True, but why a complete absense of administration rhetoric on

Iraq, prior to 9/11? Why weren't they cranking this up right after taking office? Perhaps the "energy policy" needed to be divied up, I mean formulated, but the timing of their marketing release (Mushroom Clouds For America) pre-empted further focus on the 9/11 investigation and got Congress, particularly the Democrats, to deal exclusively with this issue.

So why would they distort/cook/dissemble intelligence to make an immediate case for War? Actions of distractions. 2500+ Americans dead and no public investigation that can evaluate all information on what this administration knew and did (or did not do) to prevent this attack on our country.

[BurtWorm]

17. These guys are famous for not being able to hold two thoughts in their

heads at once. They do three or four big things, so they don't burden their advertising consultants and pet pundits with too many talking points. So year one was supposed to be the Year of the Tax Cut. Iraq was reserved for later. This is my theory, but it's based on a bunch of reading about the Bushists.

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

18. Politicians showing off their jock-strap size.

A diversion to avoid actually doing anything substantial to face the actual causes of terrorism. Poverty, ignorance, hopelessness, and the justified belief that the USA (and the rest of the 1st world) is the cause.

It's a helluva lot easier and politically expedient to wave the flag, sing "God Bless America", strut like a teenage boy who just got laid, make idiotic statements like "Bring 'em on", and attack a defenseless, nation than to actually have to do something that would work.

The sad fact is that most of the suckers still respond to the Orwellian tactics and love Big Brother and his overstuffed jock.